The
Bible states that the Ark of Noah was to be made of gopherwood. The Hebrew word (Note [1])
is gopher (#1613). This word
only appears once in the entire Bible.
The following verse, Genesis 6:14, is from the New King James
Version of the Bible: “Make
yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it
inside and outside with pitch.”

What was gopherwood? The response of one Bible dictionary is
typical (Note [2]).
“Gopher Wood: the wood from which Noah’s ark was made (Genesis 6:14). The word “gopher” is unknown elsewhere in
Hebrew or allied languages. It may
refer to some resinous wood, like pine, cedar, or cypress; or the reference may
be to boats made of interwoven willow branches and palm leaves, coated on the
outside with bitumen.”

Many
Bible commentaries have entries for gopherwood. Unfortunately they do not shed much light on the subject of what
exactly gopherwood is. The two
citations below are representative of the comments that will be found in most
Bible aids about Noah and the ark.

“Both
the providence of God, and the grace of God, own and crown the endeavours of
the obedient and diligent. God gave him very particular instructions concerning
this building, which could not but be admirably well fitted for the purpose
when Infinite Wisdom itself was the architect.
It must be made of gopher-wood. Noah, doubtless, knew what sort
of wood that was, though we now do not, whether cedar, or cypress, or what
other.” (Note [3])

“Make
thee an ark — ark, a hollow chest (Exodus 2:3). gopherwood — probably
cypress, remarkable for its durability and abounding on the Armenian
mountains. Pitch it within and without
— mineral pitch, asphalt, naphtha, or some bituminous sub­stance, which, when
smeared over and become hardened, would make it perfectly watertight.” (Note [4])

Bible translations are not much
help. The New Living Translation (Note [5])
and the New Revised Standard Version (Note [6]),
respect­ively, translate Genesis 6:14 as follows: “Make a boat from resinous
wood and seal it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls
throughout its interior.”

“Make yourself an ark of cypress
wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.”

Almost all the other Bible
translations use the word cypress, cedar, or gopherwood in describing the wood
used in the construction of the Ark.
Although cypress wood is often used in the place of gopherwood the two terms
are not equivalent. The Hebrew word for
cypress is Tirzah, #8645. If the
translators of the Bible wanted to say cypress they would have used the word
cypress just as they did in the book of Isaiah 44:14 (NKJV). “He
cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress (Tirzah) and the oak; he secures it for himself among the
trees of the forest. He plants a pine,
and the rain nourish­es it.”

Another common word that is used
in the place of gopherwood is the word cedar.
Once again there is a Hebrew word for cedar ‘erez, #730) that could have been used
by the translators. This word is used
more than 67 times in the Old Testament where it is translated cedar tree,
cedar timber, and cedar wood. A good
example is found in the book of I Kings 6:9 (NKJV). “So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with
beams and boards of cedar [‘erez].”

Obviously, the word gopherwood used in Genesis 6:14 cannot
be interpreted or translated as cedar, cypress, or any other type of modern-day
wood. Thus one can see that Biblical
scholarship is silent on the meaning of this word.

Similarity to Other Hebrew Words

Although
the word gopher (#1613) only appears once in the Bible, there are some Biblical
words that are very similar to the word used for gopher. The word for
pitch that is used twice in Genesis 6:14 (KJV) is translated from two
closely related Hebrew words. “Make
thee an ark of gopher [#1613] wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt
pitch [#3722] it within and without with pitch [#3724].”

These Hebrew words are shown in
Table 1. Notice that the words for
gopher, kaphar, and kopher are all very similar in their English
translation, in their Hebrew spelling, and in their pronunciation.

The Hebrew Names
Version of the World English Bible (Note [8]),
which uses Hebrew names and words in the text for clarity, has an interesting
translation of Genesis 6:14.
“Make a teivah of gofer wood. You shall make rooms in the teivah,
and shall seal it inside and outside with kofer.”

The word for gopherwood and the word for
pitch are very similar. The word kopher
comes from the root word kaphar (see Table 1), kaphar is often
translated atonement (Leviticus 16:6).
This was similar to the effect that pitch or kopher could have on
the surface of the material it covered.
It would have a covering or purging effect, which is what atonement,
means in a spiritual sense. An Old
Testament play on words is taking place in Genesis 6:14. The word kopher meant to cover,
protect, purge, and atone for sin. The
very similar word gopher, which was wood covered with pitch, would imply the
same in a physical sense. The gopher­wood
(pitch covered wood) would cover, protect, and purge any harm directed toward
the family of Noah by the rising floodwaters.
The gopherwood was a type of atonement barrier. It pictured the protection and salva­tion of
Jesus Christ through his payment of his life as a ransom and atonement for
humanities’ sins.

This atonement scenario and the similari­ties
between the Hebrew words in Genesis 6:14 seem to indicate that the word
gopher and gopherwood are closely related to the word for pitch. In other words, the word gopher­wood
is not a type of wood but a wood process. Specifically the process of
using pitch or bitumen combined with wood.
It has often been assumed that the pitch process applied to the wood may
have been only on the sides, that is the inside surface and the outside surface
of the ark. In actuality, the pitch
process would have been internal as well as external. Since atonement must take place not only in the outward actions
of a person but also in the heart, the analogy would be complete with
gopherwood having an internal coating of pitch.

Use of Pitch as Glue by the Ancients

The word pitch refers not only to natural
bitumen, which is often found seeping from the ground, but also to manufactured
pitch. There are many examples of how
pitch was used by the ancients. In the
ancient Roman Empire boiling birch bark and extracting the resins yielded a
glue-like tar. This resin was used to
glue together broken ceramic pots.
Birch bark tar chewing gum was also used thousands of years ago in the
Neolithic times as a cleaner for teeth (Notes [9], [10]). A recent article, among many others, shows
how this glue was manufactured. This
ancient “super­glue” was detected on remnants of two tools that were unearthed
in Germany. The site called Koenigsaue,
in the foothill of the Harz Mountains revealed the technical abilities of the
people that produced the glue. The glue
had been used to secure flint implements to wooden handles. One of the finds showed an impression of a
fingerprint on the surface of the pitch, which was prepared by heating birch
bark to between 340-400°C.
Lower temperatures would not allow the resin in the wood to melt and be
extracted. If the temperatures were too
high this would burn the tar that had been extracted from the birch and render
it unusable. This required a large
amount of intellectual and technical know­ledge. “The very fact that birch bark pitch was identified [in the
artifacts] already proclaims the intellectual and technical abilities of the
Neander­thals.” (Note [11])

In the Middle East natural bitumen was used
to haft spears heads and flint knives on wooden handles, to set jewelry, as a
coating for boats, as a glue to repair damage to statues, as a sealant for
pipes and plumbing and as a glue in the manufacture of compound bows. It was also used as a medicine in vary­ing
concentrations. It had extensive uses as documented by much scientific
literature (Note [12]). It was used by Neanderthal man anciently,
long before the flood of Noah, and still is being used to this day. This pitch or resin-like glue would
undoubtedly be used in the constructions of beams and wooden structures as a
preservative and a strengthen­ing agent.

Laminated or Layered Wood

Interestingly, older dictionaries (Note [13])
will provide insight into the word gopher.
The words wafer, gauffer, goffer, and gopher, all deal with
related concepts. Definitions include:
layers in a wafer, layers glued together, an adhesive to glue together layers
of paper, and layers of lace in women’s clothing. The concept of layering and lamination is implied in all of these
words. The term, “goffering,” comes from
an old French word which is the process whereby irons are used to flute and
press together various layers of lace.
The early French set­tlers in the United States named rodents that
burrowed in the earth and created layers of honeycomb [tunnels] — gophers.

The Bible reveals that Noah’s Ark was covered
inside and outside by pitch. This would
serve as a waterproofing agent. This
pitch covering was probably natural bitumen that was commonly found in seepages
in the Middle East. But what many
people do not realize is that the ark’s design would also include laminated or
layered wood that was glued together with a resinous tar-like coating. This manufactured glue was express­ly
produced for the lamination of wood and was well-known throughout the ancient
world. This lamination would provide
strength for the large beams required for the construction of the ark. As shown gopher­wood was actually a process
in which the ark’s wood was laminated and glued together with pitch and resin,
a type of ancient plywood. —
by Arnold C. Mendez, Sr.

Works Cited

[1]. Strong, James, Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance , Crusade Bible Pub., Inc., Nashville, TN, 2002 ed.
All numbers in the text refer to the number system used in this
reference.